globalvoicesonlinefandomcom-20200214-history
Whatwearelookingfor
Q: Global Voices is your baby. Your and your current team have brought it this far. I assume you have good reasons for looking for a Managing Editor. What were they? A: Global Voices has been a hugely unexpected success. Neither Rebecca or Ethan were in a position to work full-time on the project when it began - both of us continue to have other commitments (academic, professional and otherwise) that leave us perpetually feeling like we don't have enough time to dedicate to the project. Furthermore, we both travel extensively, which makes it difficult to handle the day to day details involved with keeping GV up and running. We're both deeply dedicated to the project, but there are other ways we want to spend our time than managing the day to day editorial details of the project. Q: What are you expecting from the person who you eventually hire? A: The person we hire will be the sole full-time employee of Global Voices. Basically, we're looking for someone to be the main point person on the project - take chief responsibility for handling questions from regional editors and contributors, act as the main point person in our relationship with Reuters, etc. What we're expecting is someone who can devote a great deal of attention to any problems that arise, manage a large number of personal relationships and keep track of the details neccesary to keep the site growing and moving forward. This is truly a full-time job and we expect the Managing Editor will treat it as such, approaching the work with passion, dedication, and sense of mission. Q: Why didn't you look at recruiting from within your current team of Regional Editors? A: We did. One applied - David Sasaki - and we mutually agreed that his talents would be best applied to leading our Spanish language community, which is in the process of launching a Spanish-language Global Voices, Voces Latinas. The rest of the regional editors chose not to apply. This may reveal a certain amount of wisdom on their part - the Regeds already have a huge amound on their plates, and any Reged would likely need to hire their successor as their first act. Q: What does Global Voices lack right now, in your opinion? How much of that do you think the Managing Editor can fix? A: We feel really good about where GV is going, but it's an enormous amount of work for the two of us. I think an ME will go a long way to help, but won't solve every challenge we're facing. But we're very excited to have an ME as a third partner to work through the next round of challenges. The number of contributors and volume of content really requires somebody coordinating, monitoring, and guiding things full time. We really need somebody who is able to be quickly "on the case" when something happens in the blogosphere somewhere which needs responding to in a timely fashion. We also have some regions of the world much better represented than others, and getting more participation from the less-well represented parts of the world is going to require more active work, we think. Finally, the relationship with Reuters is going to require having somebody who is readily reachable to answer questions and field communications between their news desk and our bloggers. The two of us simply are incapable of performing that role on our own. We need help!! And finally, as you and many people have mentioned - we want to protect our community from being treated like a cheap stringer network. The ME needs to act as a buffer between Reuters and the GV community of bloggers: somebody who really understands that GV won't work unless it is always mindful of how and whether the interests of our bloggers are being served. The two of us are simply not in one place enough and constantly reachable enough to perform all these roles adequately.